Author Topic: BitShares Dice FBA  (Read 14943 times)

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Offline luckybit

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Offline Xypher

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How many of you guys would actually be interested in backing the house if we launch a dice based project (open source maybe)  ?
Keep in mind, it will be basic and not decentralized, but functional and good enough to get things rolling.
Should, ofcourse ask kuro and hybridd if its even possible, but yea.

Many people would probably take that risk, but not me, because without a gambling licence you can expect a knock at the door from your local authorities who would confiscate the bank :)


I have a connect whose license could be "possibly" used.
Will need to link up and confirm.

Offline monsterer

How many of you guys would actually be interested in backing the house if we launch a dice based project (open source maybe)  ?
Keep in mind, it will be basic and not decentralized, but functional and good enough to get things rolling.
Should, ofcourse ask kuro and hybridd if its even possible, but yea.

Many people would probably take that risk, but not me, because without a gambling licence you can expect a knock at the door from your local authorities who would confiscate the bank :)
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Offline Xypher

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Instant confirmations.
People would actually love it.
I hate having to wait so much on Bitcoins you know ?

Offline yvv

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How many of you guys would actually be interested in backing the house if we launch a dice based project (open source maybe)  ?
Keep in mind, it will be basic and not decentralized, but functional and good enough to get things rolling.
Should, ofcourse ask kuro and hybridd if its even possible, but yea.

There are a million of bitcoin casinos out there. If you have to put together one more, you have quite a competition. You have to put together some features which no other casino has.

Offline Empirical1.2

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I agree also that because of risks in gambling we shouldn't do it, at least for now. Maybe later when we are so big that nobody can ignore us.

The problem is whether you can get big enough without delving into activities like gambling, which was one of the primary activities that bootstrapped Bitcoin (As well as things like Silk Road)  A key USP of a decentralized blockchain is the difficulty in shutting it down so it stands to reason you may attract and profit the most from activities some people might want to shut down.

Microsoft and some big financial names are also looking favourably on Ethereum, despite the fact that Augur is the biggest Ethereum dapp being developed, which is clearly going to have sports betting as it's bread and butter. The fact Vitalik is writing gambling related smart contracts doesn't seem to phase them either.

In BTS there is a lot of risk though, I just bring it up from time to time to test the waters because the inevitable future is coming on imo


Quote
Unlike Ethereum which is general purpose and have many types of apps, Bitshares is only finance, and as soon as you associate it with gambling you make it very easy to ban. If those associations are to be made, why would you want to have the core developers make that association by building a casino right beside the stock market?

BTS merged with FMV and DNS, I believe the ultimate ambition is to make it a general purpose platform wherever it is in the best interests of BTS to do so.


More and more I feel all we have is BitSharesX by a new name, and we're stuck, not allowed to do anything else.

I liked the crypto-currency aspect of BTSX. But I think the 'features for me' thread demonstrates that developers and shareholders are willing to consider a wide range of blockchain additions not necessarily limited to finance but based on risk/reward etc.
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« Last Edit: December 14, 2015, 03:42:27 pm by Empirical1.2 »
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Offline Xypher

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How many of you guys would actually be interested in backing the house if we launch a dice based project (open source maybe)  ?
Keep in mind, it will be basic and not decentralized, but functional and good enough to get things rolling.
Should, ofcourse ask kuro and hybridd if its even possible, but yea.

Xeldal

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Quote
Unlike Ethereum which is general purpose and have many types of apps, Bitshares is only finance, and as soon as you associate it with gambling you make it very easy to ban. If those associations are to be made, why would you want to have the core developers make that association by building a casino right beside the stock market?

BTS merged with FMV and DNS, I believe the ultimate ambition is to make it a general purpose platform wherever it is in the best interests of BTS to do so.


More and more I feel all we have is BitSharesX by a new name, and we're stuck, not allowed to do anything else. 

Offline Samupaha

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I agree also that because of risks in gambling we shouldn't do it, at least for now. Maybe later when we are so big that nobody can ignore us.

But just as a thought experiment, how exactly the FBA should work in this case? How would you build gambling business that's core is FBA? What kind of new transaction should be created on the blockchain that will be the revenue source for the FBA?

Offline Empirical1.2

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The challenge with gambling is that it exposes the developers of the software to more risk than just about any other thing we could write.

Thanks for the reply, completely understandable but obviously a pity.

This might not be relevant, I don't speak code, but it seems Vitalik is writing gambling related code for Ethereum...

https://m.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/3kwsaf/if_you_are_going_to_be_building_gambling_sites/

https://github.com/ethereum/dapp-bin/blob/master/serpent_gamble/prepare.py

I guess the difference is it's then up to third parties to implement it.

Vitalik can get away with that because Ethereum is general purpose. Bitshares is specifically a financial platform though and mixing gambling and finance in the same interface is crazy stupid.

Why not integrate Silk Road into the interface so high frequency traders can keep up their supply of cocaine?

Sometimes it's just not worth it to build something directly on Bitshares or to have the developers associated with certain things. It's not that I'm against gambling but I just think if you want gambling there is a DAC Play blockchain specifically set up to take on these sorts of risks. I don't see why all risk should be centralized on Bitshares if Bitshares is the most critical blockchain, the mother blockchain.

Why not take the risks on the chains which were set up specifically for these sorts of experiments?


Here is the law in China
Quote
Whoever, for the purpose of profit, gathers people to engage in gambling, runs a gambling house or makes gambling his profession shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or public surveillance and shall also be fined.

Is it worth killing Bitshares in China? China is the main market for Bitshares and you want to poison that market with gambling so regulators can have every excuse they need to go after witnesses and even users?

Unlike Ethereum which is general purpose and have many types of apps, Bitshares is only finance, and as soon as you associate it with gambling you make it very easy to ban. If those associations are to be made, why would you want to have the core developers make that association by building a casino right beside the stock market?

Imagine you're some Chinese politician or regulator and you're using Bitshares for the first time, introduced to Bitshares because of crowd funding or the stocks, and you see a casino built into it? It's one thing to have an ad for a casino which is a separate third party operation, but it's something else completely to build it into the interface itself. If it must be decentralized, use the DAC Play blockchain and then put the UIA on Bitshares so people can buy it through Bitshares.

Also remember Lottoshares? If it's such a big demand then why aren't people using that?
http://www.onlinebetting.com/legal/china/


In order to reduce risks on the developers, witnesses and the blockchain itself all of the topics below should be avoided:

1. Drugs or controlled substances
2. Gambling
3. Bribery
4. Dealing in obscene matter

If individuals want to take their chances with these non-violent but clearly fronwd upon activities then they can create a UIA and do so as a third party (this way the risk is entirely on the people who want to take it). There is no need for a FBA or to bring the whole blockchain into their experiment because by doing that you also spread risk and potentially infect the whole blockchain with police investigations.

Gambling isn't likely to make Bitshares have a 100 billion dollar market cap. If a casino were such a good idea then you'd be using the DAC Play blockchain, or Lottoshares, or Lottoshares, or any of the others. My guess is a casino done they way you'd be thinking about doing it would bring only risks, it wouldn't better the world in any kind of way, or advance liberty in any kind of way, so it's not like prediction markets which actually have some purpose.

Of course I'm not the decision maker, the community is. It's very possible that the majority in the community either don't live in a country like China, or they don't live in the USA, so they might think it's a good idea to do it.  I just hope if they go into it that they realize there are cops who don't have anything better to do but to investigate stuff like that.


Quote
Also remember Lottoshares? If it's such a big demand then why aren't people using that?


- A lottery's USP over Dice is the much larger jackpot, Lottoshares did not have that and the one it did have was paid out in Lottoshares and so would be worthless if you tried to cash out in the tiny illiquid LTS market.
- They also did not have a decentralized rng IIRC
- As a new low value DAC, they would be perceived as even more risky than a centralized site.
- The blockchain performance at that time as well as GUI would not have been compelling enough to attract centralized business.

Quote
Gambling isn't likely to make Bitshares have a 100 billion dollar market cap. If a casino were such a good idea then you'd be using the DAC Play blockchain, or Lottoshares, or Lottoshares, or any of the others. My guess is a casino done they way you'd be thinking about doing it would bring only risks, it wouldn't better the world in any kind of way, or advance liberty in any kind of way, so it's not like prediction markets which actually have some purpose.

Gambling will be successful for exactly the same reason a decentralized exchange may be successful.

Less threat of theft, hit and run, seizure and closure, however now that BTC is maturing there are more trusted and legal BTC centralized exchanges and so the risks are lower and thus the DEX has to compete on price. With gambling this is not the case, there are many thefts. hit and runs and closures so the USP still exists and will for a while. 

The reason previous options have met with limited success is the same reason a DEX has been unsuccessful to date, they haven't been able to marry the user experience of centralized options with the advantages of decentralization. BTS 2.0 is the first blockchain capable of achieving of this. The difference with the DEX and most other two way markets including PM's is that besides developing the product you need to bring enough buyers and sellers together and create initial liquidity to make it viable. (This is why I probably wouldn't invest heavily in the BTS Prediction Market FBA, BTS has demonstrated the ability to develop a good product but not take it to market - this is very hard for anyone - and I suspect Augur may bootstrap first and suck up >90% market share just like BTC vs. Alts. A PM may also require a lot of other moving parts/management to be competitive.) Dice is appealing as only a good product needs to be created and even the first customer will enjoy the same experience that he'll enjoy when there are many more.

Is it worth killing Bitshares in China? China is the main market for Bitshares and you want to poison that market with gambling so regulators can have every excuse they need to go after witnesses and even users?

The current TX fee, already makes further Chinese penetration unlikely imo.

BTS as a finance platform in China will among other things be used for capital control circumvention just like BTC and Stealth CNY will allow for a wide range of illegal business activities and potential tax avoidance that is going to give BTS problems in China as it expands in size anyway.   

Quote
Unlike Ethereum which is general purpose and have many types of apps, Bitshares is only finance, and as soon as you associate it with gambling you make it very easy to ban. If those associations are to be made, why would you want to have the core developers make that association by building a casino right beside the stock market?

BTS merged with FMV and DNS, I believe the ultimate ambition is to make it a general purpose platform wherever it is in the best interests of BTS to do so.

The platform DAC's like Ethereum and BitShares depend on money & ultimately profit coming into the system to fund further development, bootstrap their key smartcoins and create a bustling blockchain economy, like BTC, Ethereum may help bootstrap ETH and their key smartcoin products on the back of  gambling, most likely Augur sports betting. Due to the consequent network effect, anyone wishing to issue financial products and services might choose to do so on the most popular and fastest growing platform, this is where customers looking for those products may also turn to first.






« Last Edit: December 14, 2015, 02:54:26 pm by Empirical1.2 »
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Offline monsterer

What is the actual function we are talking about here, that dice requires, and bitshares does not currently have?

Is it just a transparent, verifiable RNG? 
Or does it require an escrow smart contract whose result is based on the outcome of the RNG?

Is the existence of such a function, by itself, considered gambling?  Or is it how a frontend website/client uses that function.
Are there any other legitimate uses for that type of contract?  Couldn't the contract be created with existing multisig functions?

At the very least we could have the RNG.  There's no way, that this alone could be considered gambling.  Random numbers are used for all sorts of things.   It would be up to the frontend how to use it, and only they would be subject to whatever legal or cultural consequences.   

I don't think bitshares needs to directly offer gambling, but I do think bitshares should have the simple tools available for someone who does want to offer it themselves.

You need a smart contract really. You have a bank, which is a big account full of currency, under the control of the 'house' and you have players who bet against the house using random numbers. The rnd decides who wins, paying the currency out to the winner (scaled by the probability of winning).

It's exact place at which the bet is struck that becomes the focus of any legal investigation, I think.
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jakub

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Sometimes it's just not worth it to build something directly on Bitshares or to have the developers associated with certain things. It's not that I'm against gambling but I just think if you want gambling there is a DAC Play blockchain specifically set up to take on these sorts of risks. I don't see why all risk should be centralized on Bitshares if Bitshares is the most critical blockchain, the mother blockchain.

Why not take the risks on the chains which were set up specifically for these sorts of experiments?
Unlike Ethereum which is general purpose and have many types of apps, Bitshares is only finance, and as soon as you associate it with gambling you make it very easy to ban. If those associations are to be made, why would you want to have the core developers make that association by building a casino right beside the stock market?

 +5%
I agree with luckybit on this one.

Offline luckybit

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The challenge with gambling is that it exposes the developers of the software to more risk than just about any other thing we could write.

Thanks for the reply, completely understandable but obviously a pity.

This might not be relevant, I don't speak code, but it seems Vitalik is writing gambling related code for Ethereum...

https://m.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/3kwsaf/if_you_are_going_to_be_building_gambling_sites/

https://github.com/ethereum/dapp-bin/blob/master/serpent_gamble/prepare.py

I guess the difference is it's then up to third parties to implement it.

Vitalik can get away with that because Ethereum is general purpose. Bitshares is specifically a financial platform though and mixing gambling and finance in the same interface is crazy stupid.

Why not integrate Silk Road into the interface so high frequency traders can keep up their supply of cocaine?

Sometimes it's just not worth it to build something directly on Bitshares or to have the developers associated with certain things. It's not that I'm against gambling but I just think if you want gambling there is a DAC Play blockchain specifically set up to take on these sorts of risks. I don't see why all risk should be centralized on Bitshares if Bitshares is the most critical blockchain, the mother blockchain.

Why not take the risks on the chains which were set up specifically for these sorts of experiments?


Here is the law in China
Quote
Whoever, for the purpose of profit, gathers people to engage in gambling, runs a gambling house or makes gambling his profession shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or public surveillance and shall also be fined.

Is it worth killing Bitshares in China? China is the main market for Bitshares and you want to poison that market with gambling so regulators can have every excuse they need to go after witnesses and even users?

Unlike Ethereum which is general purpose and have many types of apps, Bitshares is only finance, and as soon as you associate it with gambling you make it very easy to ban. If those associations are to be made, why would you want to have the core developers make that association by building a casino right beside the stock market?

Imagine you're some Chinese politician or regulator and you're using Bitshares for the first time, introduced to Bitshares because of crowd funding or the stocks, and you see a casino built into it? It's one thing to have an ad for a casino which is a separate third party operation, but it's something else completely to build it into the interface itself. If it must be decentralized, use the DAC Play blockchain and then put the UIA on Bitshares so people can buy it through Bitshares.

Also remember Lottoshares? If it's such a big demand then why aren't people using that?
http://www.onlinebetting.com/legal/china/


In order to reduce risks on the developers, witnesses and the blockchain itself all of the topics below should be avoided:

1. Drugs or controlled substances
2. Gambling
3. Bribery
4. Dealing in obscene matter

If individuals want to take their chances with these non-violent but clearly fronwd upon activities then they can create a UIA and do so as a third party (this way the risk is entirely on the people who want to take it). There is no need for a FBA or to bring the whole blockchain into their experiment because by doing that you also spread risk and potentially infect the whole blockchain with police investigations.

Gambling isn't likely to make Bitshares have a 100 billion dollar market cap. If a casino were such a good idea then you'd be using the DAC Play blockchain, or Lottoshares, or Lottoshares, or any of the others. My guess is a casino done they way you'd be thinking about doing it would bring only risks, it wouldn't better the world in any kind of way, or advance liberty in any kind of way, so it's not like prediction markets which actually have some purpose.

Of course I'm not the decision maker, the community is. It's very possible that the majority in the community either don't live in a country like China, or they don't live in the USA, so they might think it's a good idea to do it.  I just hope if they go into it that they realize there are cops who don't have anything better to do but to investigate stuff like that.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2015, 03:23:12 am by luckybit »
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Offline luckybit

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I would prefer to see cannabis commodities and assets than to see blatant gambling because it only will take away from the legitimate features like prediction markets. If someone does want to do a dice type feature why not just make it external to Bitshares or use DAC Play?

Prediction markets will offer sports betting which is 'blatant gambling' and that is going to ruffle a whole lot more feathers than dice.

Quote
Augur may become the greatest gambling platform in history

...Augur is destined to become the cypherpunks answer to gambling prohibition—the betting man’s version of the online drug market Silk Road...

Augur also serves the less high-minded—though no less noble—purpose of providing cost savings and convenience to gamblers. Restrictions on gambling serve to protect government revenue at the betting man's expense. State-sanctioned casino operators pay high taxes, and state-run lotteries fleece their customers. But there's no logical or moral case for government restrictions on gambling, since no third party is harmed when consenting adults wager money on the future. Augur actually has the potential to make the world safer by taking away market share in the gambling industry from criminals.


https://reason.com/blog/2015/08/11/augur-gambling-prediction-ethereum

There is a huge difference between dice which is blatant gambling and prediction markets. Prediction markets are more than just gambling because you can analyze a prediction market to get truly valuable information.

You get nothing of value from analyzing dice. Dice is just gambling, it's literally junk information, it's junk food. Why should we sell junk food when we can sell gourmet food in our restaurant?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futarchy

Yes you can ask some interesting questions via prediction markets, but their bread and butter will be 90% sports betting where the demand is, so there will be no sugar coating that whatever platform offers prediction markets is among other things a blatant gambling platform.

Do you not see the heat daily fantasy betting is getting in the US at the moment?
http://voiceherald.com/2015/12/13/fantasy-sport-sites-stay-open-despite-illegal-gambling.html

At the same time DraftKings are willing to take the risk because they like dollar, dollar bills y'all....

Quote
"Global opportunity for online betting and casino market estimated at $27 (billion) now, $36B by 2018," one slide in DraftKings' presentation said. Another noted that "sports wagering" was a large potential market, with one estimate "that illegal sports wagers are as much as $380 billion annually."

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/critics-say-ny-evidence-suggests-fantasy-sports-sites-consider-themselves/2257426

I'm all for prediction markets too, but they're going to take the same if not more heat than other forms of gambling.

How are you going to predict the future (how a prediction market will be used) without a prediction market?
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Offline Akado

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The challenge with gambling is that it exposes the developers of the software to more risk than just about any other thing we could write.

Didn't the creating of Augur mean it's ok to do this sort of stuff? Assuming it's decentralized and there's no need for a specific 3rd party to host it...

Not necessarily OK they are taking an educated risk

Quote
What about the legal / regulatory aspect of this?

We have been in active, constructive communications with past and current members of key regulatory agencies, including the CFTC.
This legal analysis was written by one of our advisors (and two other friends of the project). Page 67, section b "Decentralized Applications," pg. 70, 2. "Predictions Markets," and pg. 73, section c "Law and Decentralization" are the parts that relate to us. We think it captures our views on how regulators will approach this.
The law does not prohibit the creation of open-source, decentralized prediction market software, nor the distribution of of cryptocurrencytokens. In fact, writing source-code is a protected activity under the First Amendment as demonstrated in Junger v. Daly.
We have examined legal precedents and case law, our legal advisory is world-class and we are being entirely transparent about what we are building. We have been, and are more than happy to continue, engaging in discussions with any interested parties, including regulatory authorites, about the software.

http://www.augur.net/blog/augur-answers

Didn't know about that.. I guess in case something went bad, most investors wouldn't care and just call Augur a scam lol

"In fact, writing source-code is a protected activity under the First Amendment as demonstrated in Junger v. Daly." This is interesting, as long as it can't be argued it can harm someone and/or be used for tax evasion? But that should be arguable against gambling...

So what could possible solutions be?
Developing a gambling system in anonymity?
Friendly jurisdiction?

Or the software must be decentralized..  But that doesn't necessarily keep original devs safe
« Last Edit: December 14, 2015, 12:41:48 am by Akado »
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